hurt your feelings.”
Angel reached for her hand.
Emma considered yanking her hand away, but she wasn’t a kid. She’d been a budding teenager when she’d first met Angel, and she was still acting that way toward her.
“When I first met your mom, as her nurse, one of the things that impressed me most was how much she loved her family. You and Edward. Your mom and dad had one of the best relationships I had ever seen.” Angel blew out a shaky breath. “I came from a broken home and a broken marriage.”
“So you were jealous of my parents?” Emma asked. It was an honest question with no attitude behind it. She really wanted to know.
“No,” Angel said, pulling her hand back now. “Yes. I was inspired by watching them together. Your mom was my patient, and I loved her. I grew closer to her than I ever have with a patient, and when she was gone, I missed her.” Angel looked down at her hands on the table for a moment. “She told me that she had recently been working on her marriage to your dad. She said she wanted to fall in love with him all over again, and I think they did.”
Emma remembered the checked item on her mom’s list. Fall in love with my husband all over again.
“She sent me out to get little trinkets for him. I played matchmaker in a way.” Angel looked at Emma. “I never had any feelings for your father during that time. We barely even talked. When your mom was in the room, Edward only had eyes for her. You need to know that.”
Emma rolled her lips together as emotion surfaced. This conversation was way overdue. But maybe she wouldn’t have listened until now. Maybe she wouldn’t have believed Angel if she’d tried to explain this to her before. “I believe you,” Emma said.
Angel smiled. “After your mom died, I never saw your dad until about a year later. He was sitting alone, and I felt like he needed someone to talk to. So we talked, and it felt good to both of us so we decided to do it again…” She squinted under the shelter of the umbrella. “You don’t get to choose who you fall in love with. He was Jenny’s Edward. But he became my Eddie.”
Hearing Angel call her dad Eddie had always scraped on her nerves, but now, in this context, it made sense. “I’m sorry, Angel,” Emma said, reaching out for her stepmother’s hand this time. “I’m really sorry.”
Angel shook her head. “No need to be. I was a hospice nurse. I know all the stages of grief. You were angry.”
“I stayed angry too long, and you didn’t deserve it.”
“One thing I learned in hospice is that there are no rules for how people deal with the bad stuff. They just do and feel what they need to in order to get through it. That’s all any of us are doing.”
Emma nodded. “I’m glad my dad has you in his life. I’m glad he’s not alone.” She hated to think about Angel being lonely once upon a time. “I’m glad you have him too.”
“And now we have each other,” Angel added, her eyes squinting warmly, hugging Emma across the table like she’d done for years. This warranted a real hug though.
Emma stood and wrapped her arms around Angel’s neck. She felt Angel tense initially and then relax. When she pulled away, Angel looked at her.
“I knew about your mom’s Life List. I never left her side toward the end. I’ve thought about that list over the years. When I heard about the race you were planning, I knew you’d found it.”
Emma’s lips parted. “Deb Hershey sent it my way.”
“Your mom’s best friend.” Angel nodded. “The 5K was the one thing on the list she never got to do.”
“Well,” Emma hedged, “she didn’t save a life. And she wanted to leave something special behind when she died.”
Angel pushed back from the table and stood, meeting Emma at eye level. “It depends on what you consider saving a life. I was a different person back then. I was bitter about all the things that had gone wrong in my own life, and I was lonely. I thought it would always be that way. But while I helped your mom die, she helped me learn to live. She saved my life, Emma. I’m not the same person because of her.”
Emma’s eyes burned. She didn’t want to cry.
“And she did